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Setting up a Turnitin Assignment - Staff Guide

There are two ways to administer Turnitin Assignments; the one Assignment method and the two Assignments method.

One Assignment Method

  • Keeps all student submissions together
  • Late submissions are identified via red text in the Assignment inbox

Jump to One Assignment Method

Two Assignment Method

  • Has one Turnitin Assignment area for on time submissions
  • Has another Turnitin Assignment area for late submissions and extensions

Jump to Two Assignment Method

Using the two Assignment method keeps on time and late submissions apart, simplifying some admin processes. This will significantly help if the School plans to print a large number of submissions as it helps to keep control of what has been printed.

Which method should I use?

It is recommended that a School adopts just one method and uses this consistently to avoid confusion for the students. If you are unsure what solution is best for you, speak to your Minerva Contact or the Digital Education Systems Team via the IT Service Desk.

The sections below contain best practice information for both methods.

One Assignment Method

To add a Turnitin assignment, you must have an Instructor or Teaching Assistant role on the module. Module Builders and Graders cannot add assignments to modules.

Step 1

Navigate to where you want students to view and submit the assignment (usually within the folder Assessment and Feedback > Submit My Work). Then click on the plus icon, select Content Market and then Turnitin LTI:

Folder location of Turnitin assignments


Step 2

Now you'll see the new assignment page.

New assignment page for Turnitin

Working from the top of the New Assignment page:

  • Enter an Assignment title. It is recommended that this contains the date and time of the submission deadline. Avoid special characters and do not use commas.
  • Enter any Instructions as required for your students. This can be a good place to enter what is expected of the student, such as an Academic Integrity statement, that a cover sheet is expected, or what the assignment should be called on submission.   Please be aware these instructions can be no more than 750 characters as there is a character limit in the Blackboard LTI description field  which will remove anything from the description box over the limit.
  • Enable Peermark if necessary.
  • Enter a Max Grade.
  • Set the Start date for when the students will see the assignment area.
  • Enter the Due date with the correct date and time of the deadline.
  • Enter a Feedback Release Date which is when the marks/feedback will be released to students. To allow for delays in marking it is recommended that this date is set to the end of the calendar or academic year and brought forward just once when the marks are ready to be released.

 

Warning!

Manipulating the post date backwards and then forwards can cause loss of grades. Set the post date well in advance and bring the date forward on one occasion when the feedback is ready to be returned.


Step 3

There are further options to consider, to view these click the Optional Settings button at the bottom of the New Assignment page.

Submission Settings

  • Submit papers to - Standard paper repository is the default. If you choose this, papers will be stored in Turnitin's database for future plagiarism searches.
  • Allow submission of any file type? - If checked students can submit any supported file type. If unchecked, students will only be able to submit file types which can be checked for originality.
  • Allow late submissions? - For the one Assignment method this must be selected so that students can submit assignments after the due date. Any late submissions will still generate an originality report and will be highlighted in red text in the date submitted field.
  • Enable anonymous marking? - If in any doubt put the setting to Yes, regardless of how the assignment will be marked. The anonymous setting is a one way process; it cannot be added once the inbox has been created, but it can be removed. This setting hides student names from everyone. The names are only revealed on the post date when all marking should be completed.
  • Attach a rubric - If the assignment is going to be marked online, you can select a rubric or grading form to aid with marking here. See the guide on Marking Tools and Methods. If this has not been set up then it can be added at a later date

Compare against

Select options to compare papers to for originality checks. It is standard to select all.

Similarity Report

    • Generate similarity reports - There are three options for when to generate similarity reports.
      1. immediately (students cannot resubmit) - select this option if you only want students to submit once.
      2. immediately (students can resubmit until due date) - students can submit more than once and an originality report is created each time (only the final submission/report is kept).
      3. on due date - students can submit more than once but only one similarity report is created (only the final submission is kept). This option also ensures all student submissions will be compared to each other.

The recommended setting is on due date; allowing students to submit freely until the deadline with all originality reports generated on the deadline

    • Allow students to see Similarity Reports? - If you allow students to resubmit after the Similarity Report is generated, we recommend this is not selected so students cannot see their report and then change their work before a final submission.
    • Exclude Options: Bibliographical materials, Quoted material, Small matches - The University recommends that there should be no exclusions. However as an aide to interpretation of an individual assignment, you may exclude matches that are less than a certain number of Words (no more than 7) or a percentage (no more than 2%) of the assignment.

Exclusion issues

The exclusion rules are not perfect and may result in some students receiving higher matches than others within a class. Misspelt words for bibliograpy/references and the incorrect use of quote marks will result in text NOT being excluded. Use the exclusion rules with caution.

Exclude assignment template

If you use a cover sheet for submissions, enabling this feature will allow for this to be automatically excluded from the similarity report. Select Upload Template and attach the cover sheet file. This cannot be changed once submissions have started.

Submission Settings

Select the box to save your settings for future use.


Step 4

Once you've set all the options, select Submit. You will see that the Turnitin submission area has been added to your Minerva module.


Two Assignment Method

Go through all of the steps above to create the first assignment.

Repeat the process to create a second assignment area in the same module area. This area will be for late submissions and extensions only.

Follow the settings from Steps 2 and 3 and amend the following:

    • Title - The title should include Late/Extensions; after the date and time of the original deadline.
    • Start Date - The start date should be the date and time of the deadline. This will mean that this inbox is not visible to students until the deadline has been reached.
    • Due Date - The due date should  remain the same - and actually be the same as the start date. You must also move the due date time forward by one minute so the settings will save in Turntin. Note: If you do not move the due date time forward, turnitin will move the due date forward by a day automatically.
  • Allow submissions after the due date? - This should be selected as all submissions to this box are technically late.

Select Submit again.

It is advisable to add a conditional release rule to the second assignment so only the students who need to submit see it (this will prevent other students on the module seeing prompts for this assignment in the activity stream as well).

Add a conditional release rule by selecting the 3 dot icon, then Edit. Select Conditional Availability from the drop down menu. Select Specific members or groups, and then either individual student names, or a group of students if this has been set up.


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